Saturday, December 17, 2011

Lessen Worry; Become Merry

A newly-wed girl started weeping profusely without waking up from bed in the morning. Her mother asked why she was crying. “May be someday my husband would be going in a ship- he told me yesterday he loves sea-travel- and it may meet with an accident and drown and he will die.”

Well, this may look unreasonable. She is weeping over an imagined situation which may never come to pass. But we all do this sort of things very often: we blow up something that may never come to pass and worry. And we know worry will strangle or choke us off.

Many of us feel we do something only when we worry. A day of worrying is exhausting, harder than work. It leads nowhere; analysing an imagined event threadbare makes your body and mind simply paralysed.

People waste their lives stuck in a state of constant worry. They worry about their children's poor grades, future, work, about the attitude of the boss, relationships with others, diseases, enemies, travel, the leak that has been developed in the roof……..

Worrying is a help if it makes you to take action, to solve a problem, avoid bad things or prepare you for the worst. But that rarely happens and in mostly worry becomes a problem of its own. Some of us even worry about worrying too. Worry induces fears and sends one’s anxiety levels soaring which interfere with one’s day-today life. It is normally a habit and this can be overcome by training your brain to look at life from a better perspective. The greatest comforting thought is that almost everyone worries-- great leaders, painters, singers, authors, rich, poor, all.

I have heard about an old lady who worried all day long. But her real worry starts by the sunset. She worries just about anything and everything and the funniest thing is that none of her worries has ever materialized. Studies done on worry show that more than 95 percent of them never happen. And the remaining will happen whether you worry or not. So why worry at all?

Worry really burns us off while we are alive just like a pyre burns off a dead body. Let us cross the bridge when we come to it. Why should we fret over it from afar?

Worry does not help tomorrow’s problems in any way and the sad part is that it takes away today’s happiness. When we worry about the future, we are destroying the future itself. Worrying does not help anyone; still, many find it hard to stop it.

Worry comes uninvited and most of us feel it is not within our control to get away from this nagging problem. They rob you of the ability to laugh, love and share joy with your dear ones.

Is there no way to control the same or at least mitigate its debilitating effects? Constant worrying takes a heavy toll as it gives sleepless nights and makes your days edgy and confused. You may even believe that constant worrying will lead to diseases or that it may drive you crazy.

Well, if you sit and worry when it takes possession of your mind, it will bother you more and smother your faculties. Worrying rarely leads to solutions. You’re no more prepared to deal with them should they actually happen no matter how much time you spend brooding over even the worst case scenarios.

Distraction could be a way of escape; do something that can absorb you fully like engaging in your hobby, playing with your children, enjoying a warm bath, watching a hilarious movie, talking to someone you love, taking a walk in a quiet beautiful place, hearing a song you love, reading a book you cherished all along or playing your favorite game. But this is no permanent solution it will only lessen the tension worry induces.

But remember that telling yourself to stop worrying does not help in the long run. Your suppression of anxious thoughts makes them stronger and more persistent over a longer period.

Why not assign a period for worrying every day? Half an hour you sit for ‘worrying’. Follow the same place and time for worry: earmark say, 5.30pm in the bedroom. During this ‘worry period’ you can worry about anything and everything but the rest of the day must be free of it. If worry thoughts prop up in between assign it for the worry time when you can indulge in it to your heart’s content. Making a worry list for the worry time is found to be helpful too. Postponing worry helps as it breaks the habit of dwelling on any worry that props up then and there. Slowly you get more control on the worrying habit.

Even deep, slow breathing and exhaling will calm you down and reduce the intensity of worry. While relaxed thus, focus on what you can do t o solve the problem rather than what you cannot do.

There is a very practical way to get rid of the tension from worry: relax your muscles. Take each limb of your body and hold it tight while you count up to 5. Release the tension and move it slowly sideways saying to yourself, relax, relax, relax. Start with your legs, then the buttocks, backside, neck, forehead, eyes, mouth, chest, stomach and hands. If you have relaxed each muscle in your body the tension induced by the worry would have melted away.

Have you heard the old saying, ‘an optimist laughs to forget and the pessimist forgets to laugh?’ It is very much true. The only paradox is: there are more pessimists. We are all holding our facial muscles taut and we do not let them ease out for a moment nor relax them in a smile which will guarantee a better appearance. Smiling is an anti-dot for worry too. Worry cannot reside in a person who keeps a smile. A good laugh is the medicine. If you frown, you worry more.

Make sure you do not get caught up in a worry cycle. We worry about something now. When it eases off but another worry crops up and when this one fades away a third is waiting to enter.

Thinking about all the things that could go wrong doesn’t make life any more predictable or keep off bad things from happening. It is not possible to be certain about everything in the future. What is the need to be certain about? Let there be some uncertainty. Why should we predict bad things when the possibility for a bad occurrence is very every low?